Globally, as many as 12 million girls marry before the age of 18 every year; in northern Nigeria, 80% of girls marry before 18 (refs. 1,2). Although such marriages may be deemed the best available option by many girls and parents, numerous studies suggest that, when delayed marriage is made possible, it benefits educational attainment, improves health by reducing maternal mortality and morbidity, and leads to many other benefits to girls’ lives3–8. Despite this, little is known about what reduces child marriage, and successful interventions tend to have an impact of just a few percentage points. We use a paired cluster-randomized trial in 18 communities to rigorously evaluate a locally tailored big-push intervention called Pathways to Choice in northern Nigeria. We show that Pathways decreases rates of marriage among adolescent girls from 86% in the control group to only 21% in the treatment group—just over an 80% decrease. Although a key part of Pathways’ effect is a significant increase in girls re-enrolling in school, education alone cannot explain its effects on child marriage. We argue that Pathways’ whole-community focus reduces the likelihood of social backlash and contributes meaningfully to its success. Our results demonstrate that a big push can significantly alter entrenched, normative behaviour around child marriage, and that bundled interventions may be greater than the sum of their parts.
